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REPEAT OFFENDERS
By Wayne Webb
CHAPTER 11.1
“What is it about people that have nothing left to lose?” Brian from the future was asking himself.
“I don't follow?” Brian from the present was confused by the question, but he did not know what he would know in the next three months.
Future Brian was talking to Brian Prime, he was the first of them to travel backwards through time to discover himself waiting there to be let in on the plan. It was not like the future trips which were tightly controlled and regulated with short bursts. This first trip backwards was three months into the past, using a radioactive marker that expired years into the future, Brian had access which he would not share with any of his future associates At any point he could programme the machine to come here, but this was the very first trip he had made after months of experimenting and big changes in his life and outlook.
He remembered being here and his first steps with the machine, knowing what was coming next it was hard to not want to stop it all and prevent any of this from coming to pass, but that was possibly impossible.
Possibly impossible, the phrase sounded hollow in his head, everything seemed possible to him now. A few months ago before the time when he was just starting out on this time experiment, he thought that stasis bubbles were his greatest breakthrough and yet a scant three months later, here he was traversing time to re-sculpt the future, at least in some form.
There was some things he had to be wary of when travelling through time, science fiction was if nothing else a very good primer for the theory if not practical elements of actual time travel. Future Brian did not know for certain if he would or even could alter the past in any significant way. He had worked on the anomaly field for over ninety days since this time when the afternoon had lasted forever and the sun could be focussed on and enjoyed over and over again. Past Brian, whom he had been once in what seemed like a lifetime ago, would go on to relive this moment until he eventually fell asleep in the frozen sunlight, with no breeze or moving cloud cover the burn on his skin would ache for days. It seemed like a great place to start, get in before the pink twinges on his skin started, see if that one detail could be changed and see what happens after that.
He needed Past Brian, or Brian Beta he was thinking of him as, to listen to everything that Brian Alpha from the future would tell him, and take the advice from the extra experience he had in the field, experience that may not need to happen.
“Brian. You know that I am you right?”
“It seems that way, eliminating any psychotic breaks, hallucinations or deceptions, then yes you appear to be me.”
Future Brian wondered if everyone thought he was as much hard work as he now found himself. It was an unpleasant reality that dealing with himself in the third person sense was much harder and much more insulting to his own perceptions than he anticipated, the logic of what he was saying to himself was impeccable. He would not just trust anyone who claimed what he claimed, he would demand proof, but there simply was none that would adequately convince.
Maybe that was the answer. “I can't prove it to you.”
“How convenient. For you.”
Past Brian was a bit of a dick thought Future Brian, and 'am I really like this?”
He carried on his train of thought. “There is no evidence that can adequately convince you that you are not hallucinating. After all the nature of hallucinations is that they are convincing and they overlay reality. So any evidence I offer you is as real as the hallucination is, if that is what is going on. How can any evidence I offer be of any use to your logically when you cannot even prove that the underlying assumption is incorrect.”
“That the entire thing is an illusion, you reasoning is sound but also convenient, you could offer evidence that would prove that what you say is true if we agree to the assumption that reality is real.” Past Brian was negotiating with his Future self.
“We treat reality as a zero sum equation, in the absence of proof or disproof we accept that the reality is what it says it is and attempt to provide evidence of what I am saying within the parameters of this reality. Regardless of the validity of the nature of the reality, any real evidence whether real or imagined should still fit within the norms of acceptable evidence within the framework of this existence.” Future Brian nodded his agreement as he worked his way through what he was saying, thinking that it made sense, to attack the problem logically, programmatically.
Past Brian was ready to begin. “What number am I thinking of?”
“Excuse me? I believe you wanted proof, evidence backed by facts... not a …. parlour trick.” Future Brian's voice dripped with contempt as he said it and it twisted the face of his counterpart from the past, he too now seeing himself, recognising his attitude and mannerisms, seeing them for the first time and not liking them.
At that point there would be more to say but the tipping point had been reached when he triggered self loathing in his mirror image.
“I was thinking about lines of causality and that you have been here before, but I can see that you are me, I am you.” Past Brian said with a quiet tone and his future self understood the underlining that his words had, disappointment with himself and who he was.
“I don't remember this happening, and I'm not sure it works like this, this is a new time line for me, and the pas that I had is now starting again. We'd have to figure out a way to make this work, otherwise every time I travel backwards, or you travel backwards there will be another me, another you and another catch up. It would be easier if you did not exist, if we could find a way to not duplicate ourselves.”
“We don't have that luxury and you can't take too much back into the past with you, knowledge wise, because that would alter your existence.” Before he finished that sentence he arrived at the opposite conclusion, the same as his Future Self was alluding to.
“Except that...”
“We know that it does not. At least with information. What about more.. physical changes?”
“An experiment?”
“Try not to act like it's my idea alone.” Again the sarcasm, but this time Past Brian said it and heard in his own voice, reinforcing his self loathing but also the evidence that he was dealing with himself, or a complete psychotic break. Any delusion this complete though, was a doozy and for all intents and purposes was reality from here on in. Even if he woke up one day to discover himself scratching on the walls with crayons, this point in time may as well be enjoyed.
“It's not, no. And I have something. We need to get into the shade before it's too late though.”
The two men moved into the Barn and to the original machine, the prototype was much smaller and had some extraneous that the Future Brian would remove in his efforts to refine and improve the device, he looked at it fondly.
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